Roslyn Pilmar, 61, and her brother Evan Wald, 45, have just been convicted of the March 21, 1996 murder of Pilmar's husband, Howard Pilmar.
A trial court in New York found the defendants guilty of the sole count against them: Murder in the Second Degree.
“Howard Pilmar was savagely murdered at the hands of his wife and brother-in-law as he fiercely fought for his life. The defendants slashed and stabbed him more than 40 times, even continuing the attack after his heart stopped beating, and left his body lying on his office floor,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said in a statement.
“For nearly 23 years, Roslyn Pilmar and Evan Wald evaded justice for their gruesome crime and thought they would get away with it,” he added. But “a jury rightfully found them guilty of Murder in the Second Degree for planning Mr. Pilmar's murder together and acting in concert to carry out the cold-blooded killing. I thank the prosecutors in my Office's Cold Case and Forensic Sciences Unit and N.Y.P.D. detectives for more than two decades of dedication to this case and ensuring that Howard's death was never forgotten.”
As proven at trial, as of March 1996, Pilmar had embezzled approximately $200,000 from her former employer. She also owed nearly $15,000 in unpaid state taxes for the coffee shops she managed, called Phillip's Coffee Shop, a business that the victim owned.
In the days leading up to the incident, Pilmar and Wald, who also was employed at Phillip's Coffee Shop, made a series of unusual requests, such as requests for keys to the building and elevator, information as to how to close the office at night, and inquiries about the presence of video cameras in the building lobby.
Then, on March 21, 1996, the defendants met the victim at his office and slashed his throat, severing his windpipe, and stabbed him 48 times in his chest, torso, and back, penetrating his lungs and heart, killing him.
Pilmar subsequently collected $1.2 million from the victim's life insurance, as well as other benefits such as ownership of the victim's businesses, various real estate properties in Manhattan and Vermont, and sole custody of the couple's then 10-year-old son. After receiving payments from the victim's life insurance policy and collecting his other assets, Pilmar began repaying the debts owed to her prior employer as soon as January 7, 1997.
The case was reinvestigated by the Manhattan D.A.'s office beginning in 2013 after witnesses were found with new information. An indictment was filed on August 11, 2017 and Pilmar and Wald were arrested on August 15, 2017. Wald was extradited from Virginia to New York on October 19, 2017.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].